Samsung officially unveils the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ coming to Australia from April 28th

At long last, Samsung has officially unveiled what’s been possibly the most leaked pair of handsets we’ve ever seen, announcing the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.

The pair of phones are the latest in the Galaxy S line, with the Galaxy S8 a 5.8″ tall device, while the Galaxy S8+ pushes the size boundaries with a 6.2″ display. Both phones will use the ‘Infinity Display’ a bezel-less design on the screen which is designed to give an immersive experience without the interruption of buttons, angles or bezel to get in the way of you and the content on your screen, as well as offering easy one-handed use.

Specs are key on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ and Samsung has packed them in with a class leading 12MP camera with f/1.7 aperture on the rear and 8MP sensor with f/1.7 aperture on the front. Samsung is also leading the way with the worlds first 10nm process Octa-core processor inside the S8, though in true Samsung fashion they’re obscuring which processor we’ll see here in Australia. The high-class internals continue with the worlds first Galaxy S8/S8+ launching as the first Cat 16 Gigabit LTE phone.

The phones will both be durable with an IP68 rating against dust and water ingress and of course secure with Samsung’s KNOX security platform included, linked to the now rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and the new iris scanner that Samsung first launched on the Galaxy Note 7.

Want the full specs? Here they are, though we will be clarifying with Samsung Australia on which LTE bands are included and which processor we’ll see here in Austrlaia:

Feature wise, Bixby is the big announcement on the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. According to Samsung, ‘Bixby is an intelligent interface that will help users get more out of their phone’. Accessible through the Bixby button on the side of the phone, Bixby will allow users to access services and apps with simple voice, touch, vision and text commands. Initial compatability for Bixby is limited to Samsung apps, such as Camera, Contacts, Gallery, Messages and Settings, though Samsung has plans to launch an SDK to allow third-party developers to access Bixby’s functionality.

Bixby is more than a voice assistant, a Bixby Home will feature information you need in cards with weather, reminders and alarms. Additionally, Bixby will help you to shop for items you see while out and about & search for images through the camera.

Availablity

When will we see it? Samsung says that pre-orders for the phone will open on March 31st in Australia and run until the phone goes on-sale on April 28th. If you want the phone early though, Samsung says that customers who pre-order the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ in the first few days of the pre-order period could receive their bundle from April 21st.

People pre-ordering the phone will receive a complimentary new model Gear VR with Controller and a $50 Oculus content voucher.

How much will it be? The Samsung Galaxy S8 will have a RRP of $1,199 and Galaxy S8+ will have a RRP of $1,349

We’ll have hands-on with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ as soon as we can, so stay tuned for more information.

Daniel Tyson Editor

Dan is a die-hard Android fan. Some might even call him a lunatic. He's been an Android user since Android was a thing, and if there's a phone that's run Android, chances are he owns it (his Nexus collection is second-to-none) or has used it.

Dan's dedication to Ausdroid is without question, and he has represented us at some of the biggest international events in our industry including Google I/O, Mobile World Congress, CES and IFA.

Were there no official dimensions announced? I’ve yet to see a website list any? Given there were atleast two different dimensions leaked it would be nice to have some official confirmation of the actual size of the devices. Especially if you are going to preorder without seeing or touching a device

The difficulty there is Samsung didn’t actually GIVE us any dimensions. We’ve had to wait until someone else actually had the official ones. It seems that today we might actually have those, as per the table above.

Thankyou for FINALLY clarifying. It is selfish of me, although not unreasonable given the excellent job Ausdroid has done in answering other peoples questions in comments quickly, to have expected a similar response without the need to bump my initial question.

My initial question was “Were there no official dimensions announced?” I was disappointed that Ausdroid did not respond to my question until today. Especially as I previously stated, given the excellent job Ausdroid has done in responding to other readers questions.

Personally, given the unusual situation, it might be a good idea in future to mention any omissions like this in the original piece unless I am mistaken in thinking that a devices dimensions are important or normally announced by manufacturers at their initial official spec announcement.

Yes I am ‘for real’. I believe I have stated the reasons why I thought this was an omission and quite clearly stated that it is selfish, i.e. Ausdroid doesn’t owe me or anybody else a response to our questions. However, given that they chose to answer many other posters questions I did not think it was unreasonable to have expected a response. As more info came to light, that Samsung indeed hadn’t provided official dimensions I even provided an example response of how they could have answered my question. Do you have anything constructive to add? Was I rude… Read more »

It seems a rather unusual situation that a new flagship is officially announced and available for pre-order with no dimensions stated by the manufacturer. I don’t think it’s reasonable that Samsung would be happy to take $1199 from an Australian customer and yet not provide them with the dimensions of the product they are purchasing.

I’ve had a look and found a few Antutu comparisons and a few geekbench comparisons. The differences are a few % points in geekbench for both single and multicore and a smidge more again in Antutu. I don’t rate Antutu’s final score as a useful metric. If you want to delve into individual comparisons of memory speeds, e.t.c it has some use. Hardly what i would call a ‘very noticeable scale’. I don’t think any final differences will be apparent in real world use, where humans usually need at least a 10% difference to notice any change. Battery life between… Read more »

Compared to the lg g6 which you cant buy outright – the $192.00 difference seems worth it for the extra storage and better processor, faster 4g speeds. The only plus for the lg is the flat front screen which is better if you intend to attach a screen protector 😀

OK that’s awesome, will have another go as Telstra flagship store here in Melbourne and 3 others point blank refused to yesterday. Allthough i dont want buyers regret after seeing the specs for the Galaxy S8!!

They can sell it outright, but it’s up to the discretion of the sales people. They’re reluctant to sell stock outright in the first couple of weeks on sale, because reasons, but generally they can be talked into it.

I too will be replacing my Nexus 6 with an S8+ but I will be watching the end of the year very closely. If it is significantly bettered by the Note8, Pixel2 XXL or iPhone Edition, I may jump ship and sell. I would actually like a wider device, but this may well do what I need for the next couple of years.